


To Silver Glass

by NancyBrown



Category: The Hobbit (Jackson Movies)
Genre: F/M, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Moving On, Post-Movie(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-02
Updated: 2015-02-02
Packaged: 2018-03-10 02:56:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,453
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3274112
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NancyBrown/pseuds/NancyBrown
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tauriel searches Middle Earth for someone: herself.</p>
            </blockquote>





	To Silver Glass

**Author's Note:**

> Written for halfamoon 2015.

She goes first to the mountains. Tauriel's entire life before now has been spent in the dark lushness of Mirkwood. She learned her bow centuries ago, her eye peering between thick tree trunks to find spiders or game. She slept each night in her own bed of woven leaves, and the high canopy was her sky. Her journey behind the Dwarves, her pause at Laketown, her quest to the mountains beyond, these all frightened her only behind her breastbone, where none could see. She was captain of the guard, she was Thranduil's finest warrior, and she would not let any fear keep her from her tasks.

Once out of the trees, once free of the leafy sky, her fear turned to wonder. The dwarves, that dwarf, opened her world. She isn't welcome to return to her old life, and she cannot bear the thought if she did. Tauriel is a fledgling hatched from her silvan shell, grown too large to cramp back inside and urged by her own heart to learn flight.

If she felt nothing else for him, she will be forever grateful to Kili for making that first tap outside the egg.

She settles for a time in the ruins of Eregion, keeping her home amongst the holly and fallen bowers of elves she never knew. She spends hours in still thought, listening to the echoes of their songs still whispering in the leaves. She spends days, weeks, climbing the slopes beyond the western gate of Moria and up into the blazing blue heavens, letting the history of the stones beneath her hands, up her legs, into her soul. There are Orcs and fouler beings here now, their stories full of blood and shadow. Her soul rebels against collecting these, yet as the months pass into winter, she feels these tales too crawling into her. At no point does she fear for her life despite the constant knowledge of the evil close by. The worst they can do is destroy her body. The most harm they can bring is her death. She is unafraid of dying. She is only afraid of living endlessly with this weight upon her soul.

A decade passes in solitude, yet Tauriel is not alone, surrounded by the memories of this place where Elves and Dwarves knew friendship. Old truths, quiet friendships, rare loves, these permeate her, soaking in like a crisp spring rain. Tauriel Sharp Arrow, Tauriel Story Keeper.

She walks out of Eregion in the spring, making her way across the mountain. Lothlórien beckons with yellow blooms. Of all the memories she has collected, the ache to see mallorn with her own eyes has grown too strong. Perhaps she will be killed at the border. As long as her eyes can see the silvery boughs and the golden flowers, she will have no regret. Instead of anger or suspicion, she is greeted as a friend, and a long-lost daughter.

The Lady tells her, "Your coming was told to us by Thranduil, who wishes for you nothing but peace." She says nothing else to Tauriel that day, nor for many dozens of days.

Tauriel holds her tongue and her disbelief. She accepts the hospitality of Lórien with care, and the humility she assumes they expect of her. She joins the Galadhrim, accepting a junior position amongst the golden warriors and taking orders from Elves at half her skill. When they joke amongst themselves about Men and jest at what they think of Dwarves, she says nothing at all.

In the hours away from her duties, she finds solace not with her fellow guards, but in the innermost gardens amongst the new-grown saplings. Under the tutelage of the head gardener, her hands learn the tilling of the earth, the rich stories of worm and soil. Tauriel never misses her shift at guard, and never loses her eye when she flies her arrows at practice, but she spends more and more of her hours with dirt halfway to her elbows, or her ear pressed to the ground listening for the heartbeat of the world. Tauriel Seed Catcher.

Spring passes into autumn passes into years. The tender saplings under her hands have grown into strong young mallorn trees, which she has transplanted to the borders of Lórien. The canopy over her is golden when she can no longer abide the wind through the trees, even trees she herself has planted.

"Go," says the Lady, with a kiss on her cheek. "Find where your journey leads you." The only gift she makes to Tauriel is one of their sturdy boats, one which will bear her as far as she wishes.

Anduin is wide, and it is deep. She feels as though she sits still in the prow as Middle Earth slowly passes her by, but this is how she has felt for all these last fifteen years. The world moves on as she sits still inside her own head.

She fetches up in Ithilien, and meets up with a band of hardy Men. None among them have seen an elf before, but none care as long as she can fight the Orc sorties coming at them in the night. She makes few friends among them, keeping to herself and greeting with cold disdain the ones who see a beautiful maiden. She has no room left for love. She has her bow and a sword, and she has songs in her head, and the last of the earth of Lothlórien under her fingernails.

A respite comes after too many battles and so many dead, and she slips away in the night after she stands her watch. The boat is where she left it, sliding silently into the water like a lover. Through travels long and under wheeling stars, she alights at last in Pelargir. With her hair tied back and her ears under a cap, she passes for a youth and takes work at the docks calling herself Tucker. The sea air lives in her nose and tempts her in her dreams. She loads barges and unloads the great-sailed vessels coming back from distant shores. She learns the ways of the ships, the commands from the captains and the songs of the men.

Some of the men know what she is, both the woman and the Elf. The wise treat her no differently. The foolish soon learn how fast she is with a blade. She makes friends reluctantly with the fishwives and the tanners and the stevedores, and down at the pub she tells stories at night of Elves and Dwarves and even Orcs. She trains the boys in the bow when they come to her seeking knowledge, and she trains the girls who barely dare to meet her eyes to ask.

Time has slipped. She doesn't know it's been twenty years since the battle, only that the dreams she once had of another life no longer plague her nightly with a kind smile crumbled to dust. She does know she can't avoid the thrum of the waves in her pulse. The only question is where she will go. Her kin have passed far into the West, but she feels no wish to join them. Adventure pulls her feet again. She could book passage on any ship that sets upon the tide, could work her way across all the seas.

A ship alights in starlight. She hasn't been sleeping, and eases awake instantly to begin the night's work. Yet as she makes her way to the dock, the captain steps down the gangway, and she recognises one of her own people.

"You're the one the Men call Tucker," he says, easily seeing past her boy's hat and simple leathers.

Tauriel is tongue-tied, but only for a moment. She could walk away. She could run. But he has a ship, and he is smiling at her as a friend. "Master Círdan."

"My first mate has passed into the West. I am searching for one who can cast and tow, who can spin a fine yarn, and defend my ship against Corsair attacks. A mutual friend has suggested you might know of such a one."

He could be speaking of the Lady, or Mithrandir, or even her former king. The mere thought that she is only being offered this chance due to another's whim is grating enough for her to consider turning on one toe and walking away. But the wind gusts, tugging at her hair, and the gulls tease her with their cries. The mountains are far, and her gardens are behind her, and she has yet to hear all the tales she can tell. She has explored all the corners of her nest, and her wings are ready.

"Yes."

***  
The End  
***


End file.
